Although the great political internship that is taking place will keep us distracted for a while longer, the truth is that the daily vicissitudes of the various candidates for elective positions are unimportant because everything suggests that the market, this seemingly impersonal collective monster, will end. seizing the sum of power to then set about reshaping society with the brutality that often characterizes him. This is what happens when politicians who occupy key positions are unable to control economic variables.
On this occasion, it is not only a question of the gross errors that the Kirchner government has committed, which, in the war it claims to be waging against inflation, has allied itself with the enemy by handing over the little machine and has allowed the coffers of the government to be completely emptied. Central Bank, but also the shortcomings of the opposition, whose leaders have contrived to appear too weak to carry out the reforms that would be necessary to end at least eighty years of decline.
By now, virtually everyone understands that a sharp adjustment is inevitable, but, for reasons that are well understandable, no one wants to say so before the election or, worse still for a campaigning politician, go into detail about the measures that I would be willing to take. As the poet TS Eliot said, “mankind cannot bear much reality”, not to mention an electorate that has every reason to fear being left in misery. It is for this reason that aspirants to elective political office feel they have no choice but to commit themselves to tenaciously defending the standard of living for the majority even when they know very well that, because the numbers are so damn squalid, there will be no way to achieve it.
It is to be assumed that, forced by circumstances, once in power the eventual winners of the electoral contest do decide to take very unsympathetic measures, but in such a case they would run the risk of provoking a violent reaction that would be supported both by supporters of the militant populism who dream aloud of blood in the streets as by those who took to the letter the comforting campaign rhetoric that would have contributed to the triumph of those willing to make them suffer.
Be that as it may, even if, to the surprise of the pollsters, the country’s government finally fell into the hands of those who claim to be staunch enemies of any type of adjustment, such characters would soon be overwhelmed by the market that would impose their will without paying attention. some to the defiant cries of politicians, piqueteros, unionists, priests and intellectual luminaries who would blame “the right” or “capitalism” for the resulting impoverishment. As for Javier Milei, a man who likes to present himself as the quasi-official spokesperson for the liberated market, if he were to become President of the Republic, it would not be easy for him to handle the concrete consequences of what he claims to be determined to do.¿ Is it possible a less apocalyptic outcome of the Argentine social, political and economic tragedy than the one supposed by an unconditional surrender to the market by the national political class? Only if the country received an aid package so extraordinarily large that it would allow the government to alleviate the problems caused by the lack of reserves, which, among other things, is already depriving productive companies of the essential inputs they need to continue operating, already change will vow to make a genuine effort to keep hyperinflation at bay.
There is no doubt that a lot of money would have to come in for the adjustment that is coming to turn out to be relatively smooth, that is, “gradualist”. However, it would seem that, with the sole exception of the International Monetary Fund, which, despite Kristalina Georgieva and her collaborators, feels compelled to resist abandoning Argentina to its fate for fear of the presumed global impact of such a disaster, there is no wealthy entity that has expressed any interest in organizing the bailout of a country that has become world famous for its principled refusal to take its financial obligations seriously.
Sergio Massa hopes that China, whose regime is “neoliberal” when it comes to handling money but still takes geopolitical factors into account, will be willing to lend a hand and, duly alarmed by the implications of what it would take for a move. sinister, the United States will feel constrained to make a better offer, but it happens that both Easterners and Westerners are aware that, for now at least, the priority of the Minister of Economy who dreams of one day moving to the Casa Rosada is not create conditions that would make it possible to implement the series of structural reforms that you surely know are necessary, but rather prolong the status quo for a few more months.
If Massa achieves what he has set out to do, any future government that dares to embark on a program to get the country out of the swamp it is sinking into before it is too late would face even more difficulties than anticipated. In such a case, it would be more likely that Argentina would be the scene of an unusual humanitarian catastrophe, one that would not be caused by nature, by a civil war or by a foreign invasion, but by the myopia of a spendthrift political elite that has long enjoyed popular approval.
When optimism prevails, people tend to be tempted to accept leftist or populist governments, assuming that the time has come to better distribute available goods. It is for this reason that Peronists have always clung to the notion that, despite appearances, Argentina is still a rich country, one in which a despicable oligarchy has managed to deprive others of what it should be theirs, and members of the most bellicose Kirchner factions continue to rage against the “price makers” businessmen, as if they were responsible for the inflationary tsunami that day after day gains more strength.
To maintain the illusion that has benefited the successive manifestations of autochthonous populism so much, the Kirchnerists have not hesitated to spread false economic statistics. They would like to do it again, but they know that at this point any attempt to replace real reality with a less alarming one would be counterproductive.
In times marked by pessimism, conservatives, thrifty people who are typically less willing to take risks than their rivals, often take over. This is what is happening in Spain, where the ruling socialists have just suffered such a painful defeat in regional elections that the president of the government, Pedro Sánchez -a “friend” of Alberto Fernández-, chose to call early general elections that, Judging by what has happened lately, he will in all probability lose. The leaders of the Pro celebrated the victory of the Spanish Popular Party as their own; they feel that in the Spanish-speaking world the winds that favor them are blowing. Similarly, in Chile, where for a couple of months it seemed that the left was advancing towards hegemony, the right surprised many by overwhelmingly triumphing in the May 7 constitutional elections.
If Argentina were the “normal country” to which so many politicians allude when they talk about their objectives, it would be logical that in October the majority would opt for a conservative alternative led by someone like Patricia Bullrich who, unlike Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, gives the impression of being tough enough to regain control of the rogue economic variables that are taunting Massa and threatening to wreak endless irreparable social havoc. However, it is no longer as predictable as it appeared to be until recently that Together for Change will win the elections scheduled for October. Partly because of the deterioration of its own image and partly because of the appeal of the anarcho-liberal Milei, who has been able to mobilize the anger that so many feel, even if it wins, the coalition could not be powerful enough to give the country firm government. and rational you so desperately need.
It goes without saying that the uncertainty generated by the increasingly confusing pre-election situation is having a very negative impact on the economy. The fact that there are reasons to suspect that the next government will turn out to be as weak as the current one -or, if Milei prevails in the dark room, even more eccentric-, suggests that until further notice those who make up the national political class will limit themselves to looking at what what happens in the coming months and, perhaps, years without being able to do anything more than try to attribute the calamitous state of the country to their opponents, which will not cost them much effort since, by commission or omission, virtually all of them will have contributed something to the phenomenal mess that is taking place.
